


Like Starlight Turned to Flame

by lemurious



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst and Feels, Brotherly Love, Family Feels, Gen, Hope, Mortality, Post-War of Wrath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28072977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemurious/pseuds/lemurious
Summary: Elros has chosen to follow the path of Men. How and why did he make his choice?
Relationships: Elrond Peredhel & Elros Tar-Minyatur & Maglor | Makalaurë
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23
Collections: Tolkien Secret Santa 2020





	Like Starlight Turned to Flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alkarinque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alkarinque/gifts).



> A gift for Tolkien Secret Santa 2020. Dear Recipient, happy holidays and thank you so much for a chance to write Elros and a bit of the Fëanorians and the very beginning of Númenor! I hope you enjoy the result!

They stand before Eönwë, huddled in cloaks that offer little protection against the rain pelting their bodies, and their hands seek each other.

Elrond can barely focus on the question and does not understand why Eönwë even considers their kindred to be a _choice_ , when to him it has only ever been family. How could he think of himself as anyone other than an Elf, Noldor and Sindar mixed, as his grey eyes and black hair can attest, and secretly, while berating himself for excessive pride, he likes to tell himself that he got the better parts of both. The boundless curiosity and the compassion. The courage and the protectiveness. Everything he and his brother have managed to scrounge up from their two sets of parents lost to the iron law of the Valar, whose emissary is now looking down at them, waiting for their response.

Elrond tears his gaze from the figure in shining mail, seemingly immune to the downpour, back towards the disorienting sight of a sunken shore, their homes now lying under the wave. He wonders if their grief will ever fade. This year, it has kept returning like a tide, swallowing him in the heavy silence of their childhood being gone, forcing him to pace the hallway of their ramshackle house until he would give in and knock on Elros’s door, curl up in a chair next to his brother to watch the flames dance in their fireplace through the long winter night. Together.

At least they have each other, he thinks, for the last fleeting moment before Elros squeezes his fingers hard enough to hurt. Before Elros looks at the Herald of the Valar and says in a voice loud and firm: “I choose to belong to the kindred of Men, my lord.”

\---

_Idril has dragged her husband through the crumbling tunnels and foaming waves, from the only home they have ever known turned to ash and ruin, through the doom that has been hanging over her head since she was too young to remember, through the wrath of all the Seas encircling Valinor, and she will be damned if she has to lose him to something as simple as death._

_She stands tall and straight, a circlet of diamonds on her head, the steel of her feet shining like silver, Curufin’s best work, her eyes ablaze with the light of the Trees that could never be quenched, not even by the darkness of Helcaraxë._

_Idril Silverfoot, who has walked through ice and looked death in the face and then dared to be happily married anyway, stares daggers at Mandos and demands that Tuor be allowed to join her as one of the Eldar._

_After all, even the Valar have admitted that Tuor has brought hope to Arda, ignoring her part as usual, though now she is glad about it, because it helps her make her case to keep Tuor with her, immortal as he secretly believes himself to be anyway, having been raised among the Elves._

_“Your plea has been accepted,” says Mandos, “but the balance shall be retained. One born from you will have to leave the Elvenkind and become a mortal Man instead.”_

_She attempts to argue some more, but Mandos is implacable, and in any case she cannot think far beyond the joy of having rescued her husband from what they both consider to be the Doom of Men – what cruel foolishness would it be to call it a Gift?_

_She already knows that they will not take her son, who has been cursed to ride the skies with a Silmaril in the front of his ship, a mortal body could never survive the slow, quiet destruction wrought by the fire imprisoned within the jewel._

_Idril’s grandsons are all but lost to her, she has never met them, even their own mother barely knew them and could tell her little about them when questioned._

_Idril has always been a survivor and she knows that it inevitably means making the kind of choices that could pull her apart if she is not careful enough. She only hopes that whoever will be born of her blood and destined for mortality will be strong enough to make their life a happy one in spite of all their losses._

_\---_

_Before the bleakness of the aftermath, there was the terror of the War, and just before that, a moment of respite, a time to set aside the fears, and learn to fight, and sing, and gather mussels on the shore._

_A moment to hold the hands of the two Elves who have turned from captors into fathers in record time, to call their names to ward against the nightmares. A moment to feel like children again, like the sons of someone still within their reach._

_Elros swears to treasure every one of these moments after the evening when, during one of his solitary strolls along the beach, a figure rises from the waves and introduces himself as Ulmo, the Lord of Waters._

_Elros shivers in fear, frozen on the spot and unable to move even if the alternative is drowning. But Ulmo does not threaten to drown him, instead, he looks on as if with a great sorrow, and tells of yet another doom that the Valar have now hung above their heads._

_“You will be asked to choose,” he says. “And if neither of you accepts the Doom of Men, Lord Mandos will choose for you.”_

_Elros has never considered himself of any kindred but Elven, but he knows that neither has Elrond, and more, that Elrond, if given a choice, would spend his entire life learning the Elven lore by night, healing the wounds left by the long sequence of wars by day._

_Meanwhile Elros has to admit to himself that he does not have any passion save the vague but persistent wish to one day become a great lord and rule a kingdom, a prospect so dim, given his circumstances, that he keeps scolding himself for naivety._

_He could become a Man, he thinks, but he feels so young when confronted by the enormity of the decision. So childlike. He just does not want to, which reminds him of his tears when he clutched his mother and watched her kiss him and his brother and walk away. The only clear memory he has of her._

_He is too scared to accept this doom for himself. Could he do it for his brother?_

_\---_

_“You have been deep in thought all day, and they do not seem to be pleasant thoughts,” says Maglor to Elros, who keeps lingering in the kitchen after dinner, long after Elrond ran off back to the library as always, and Maedhros went outside to try to repair the roof that has just started leaking again. “Would you care to share them with me?”_

_Elros shakes his head. He tells himself that he should not add to his father’s worries, though deep inside he is terrified that Maglor would make him choose. Or that Elrond would find out, and would then insist of taking the curse upon himself instead, and he would never, ever be able to forgive himself for dragging his brother into it. Yet he feels that if he had to face all of it alone he would crumble, and then the truth would come out anyway, with all its terrible consequences._

_“Atya, have you ever regretted something you have not done? Especially, something that – that could have helped one of your brothers, though he would have never found out?”_

_Maglor looks shocked. He turns away and visibly struggles to compose his face before answering. “Too many times, kid. I should have… told my brothers not to follow our father. Should have stopped them at the gates of Doriath… Should have… should have stood in the place of the one my brother loved the most, on that muddy battlefield, for maybe then he would have lived and my brother would still be happy and carefree. Should have kept all my brothers from pursuing the Silmarils at any cost._

_“But you could have been killed!”_

_“I would not seek death, but it is not always a wrong choice to risk your own life to protect those you love.”_

_Elros suddenly lunges at Maglor, wrapping his arms around his waist, and hugs him tight._

_“Thank you, Atya,” he sniffles. “Could you sing me a lullaby tonight, as I fall asleep?”_

_“Tonight and any other night, for as long as you wish,” Maglor replies, a little confused and worried about what has just happened. Well, it is a miracle those kids have managed to be as cheerful as they are, most of the time, given what they already had to live through._

\---

Elrond lets go of Elros’s arm in disbelief. That is what Elros _chooses_ to do? Has he ever really known his brother? And does it mean - does it mean that after such a brief lifespan of Men they will never again -- he turns to look at Elros, to yell at him, call him a traitor.

He sees that Elros has gone deadly quiet, teeth clenched, staring straight ahead, but Elrond knows his brother and can tell that he is shaking in fear.

Elrond’s anger evaporates in an instant, as he pulls Elros into a massive hug and whispers in his ear: “It will be alright. I understand. It may not be my choice, but you will always be my brother.” He feels Elros relax with every word.

\---

Mandos is kind. He gives Elros many times the lifespan of Men and lets him build a home halfway between his mother and his brother, though he misses his fathers the most, all of them, and all of them are lost – in the fire, in the sky, on the shores. Like the Silmarils.

Elros raises children of his own, and tells them that their siblings will be the strongest bond they will ever have, so they would better cherish it. They listen, these kids with dark grey eyes, too large in their faces, too solemn for their age. They had to grow up quickly, as befits the children of Men and the heirs of the High King.

Uncle Elrond visits every year and tells them stories, and teaches them the arts of healing, and stands with Elros on the tallest tower watching the stars fade into the West, awaiting one of them, forbidden for the other.

They whisper their memories to be kept for as long as one of them lives, and swear an oath to find each other, and all their parents, again, however long it took them and even if it meant going beyond the circles of Arda.

\---

When time comes for him to leave, Elros does not even feel cheated, just ready. His children have long grown up, he has become a grandfather and a great-grandfather so many times he finds it difficult to remember all the names.

He calls for Elrond, who has been at his side for days, and suddenly there is a shadow on the other side of his bed, and a familiar voice begins a lullaby Elros remembers from his childhood. “Thank you, Atya,” he murmurs as the colors begin to fade.

In the end, he did not even have to lie, Elros thinks. It _was_ his choice, perhaps for a different reason than Elrond might have guessed, but it was, truly, his, and it brought him the kingdom he did not dare to dream of, and the family he could have never imagined, loved even fiercer because of their mortality, like a flame that has its own beauty compared to the starlight.

He would make his choice a thousand times over, Elros admits to himself as the walls fade into the mist, and he feels more than hears the voice of Mandos rumbling in his ears, assuring him with the sadness of one who is forced to deal in law, and not in love, that he will grant the brothers their own oath in recompense for the ones he has bestowed upon them, that it will not be their final farewell.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! If you enjoyed my fic, comments and kudos are always very much appreciated <3


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